


Gravitational Phenomenon

by calmdad



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Empathic Bond, Gen, Post-Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 21:51:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15128543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmdad/pseuds/calmdad
Summary: A mystical bond that cannot be forced isn't so easily broken. Twin spirits intertwined are not so easily separated. Two halves long to become whole again.





	Gravitational Phenomenon

When Shiro wakes, it's to an unfamiliar ceiling. No, it's not the ceiling that's unfamiliar, it's everything else-- the physical act of opening his eyes, gaze fixing on the stark metal of the room around him-- that doesn't feel right. He's aware of every rise and fall of his chest, his weight against the mattress, the sheets against his skin. He swears he can feel the blood in his veins, the pump, pump, pump of his heart carrying blood to the rest of his body.

His body.

_His?_

Shiro closes his eyes. Breathes. Focuses on anything except the world being too bright, too loud, too harsh, too... much. Patience. He needs to adjust. He needs time. Patience yields focus. After so long spent cradled in the safety of Black's essence, it's a matter of course that there are some growing pains. Thinking of her prompts the smallest tug on their bond, and there she is in an instant-- in his head, her presence huge, all-consuming, protective-- her voice ringing in his ears.

`Cub-brother-friend-son-love, we're One, I'm with you, I will keep you safe, always, always, always.`

The faint echo of a purr meant to soothe, a sandpaper tongue rasping against his skin. In reality, Black is still in her hangar and Shiro is tucked nice and snug in his quarters, but distance means nothing to them now. He sends waves of calm through their connection, assurances that he's fine, but he can sense her worry like the lash of a great tail and realizes the only way to convince her is to make a proper visit in person.

And here he thought summoning the energy to get out of bed was hard before. What was once a single movement of up-n'-out is now a dozen. Pull back the sheets. One hand (the only one he has left anymore) braced against the mattress. Sit up. First leg over the edge of the bed. Then the other. Then up. Then out. Then over. Countless thoughtless tasks, each of them another hurdle for a battered body with a hijacked soul shoved into it like an ill-fitting envelope.

Stop. Enough. Focus. No sense in piling on the anxiety for his lion to fret over.

On his way down to the hangars, the castle is quiet. It should be unnerving, but Shiro breathes a sigh of relief as he makes his way through the endless corridors. It's a pain in the ass to have to stop every few minutes, because even though the body knows it can keep going, the spirit inside it is still relearning how to function as a unit instead of disparate parts all jumbled together. Almost feels like he's some twisted funhouse version of Voltron itself, all hulking limbs and leaden movements. He meets no one, and he's thankful for little miracles, because a few more seconds of pinched expressions full of worry and pity and grief and what he hopes to god isn't distrust and Shiro will try to throw something.

He gets it. He really does. Getting it is the entire reason he's kept a tight lid on his emotions so far. But it doesn't make the constant fuss any less humiliating, and a guy can only take so much hovering.

Shiro feels Black before he sees her, their bond a constant hum in the background of his mind that turns into a tidal wave once she senses that he's close by. Though the metal fixtures of her features are impassive as ever, he knows her joy like it's his own, her cries of `Finally!` like she's a kitten impatient for playtime instead of an ancient machine, an instrument made to end wars one way or another. "Hey there, old girl," he says with a smile that's ragged around the edges, hand brushing along the surface of a massive claw. Black dips her head, opens her jaws wide, and obliging as ever, Shiro climbs inside.

It's like coming home.

He's been here from the start, bits of him scattered throughout every nook and cranny, settled into the confines of Voltron's head, seeing through her eyes and lending his strength, however much he could provide, to support her next Paladin. There's no trace of himself in the cockpit now, no impression of his hands laid over Keith's in their final, urgent sprint back to safety, nothing to show he'd ever answered that desperate call. He tells himself it's for the better.

Everything is just as he left it, which shouldn't strike him as odd but does anyway. "Been a while since we've gotten to fly together," he says to Black. "Well, not together-together, I guess, but-- You know what I mean." She does. Between them, there's no need for speech, but he feels that talking helps, so he finds comfort in the familiar. When he reaches out to grip Black's controls, there's a flash of memory: his hands (plural) pulling with all his might, pleading with her to please, please move for him, let him in, show him he's not worthless. His own? Not his. Not quite. Another adjustment he'll have to get used to, but knowing comes with accepting everything the him-that-wasn't-him did and felt and thought, and Shiro isn't sure he's ready for that.

Not yet. Not quite.

"You're gonna have to work with me a little here," he warns, the obvious problem going unsaid but still making a nuisance of itself with how it chafes. He hears an answering growl of dismissive pride; just who does he think she is? They are One, he doesn't need hands, only thought and intention. `Okay,` he thinks instead, `How about we go for a joyride?` If the other members of his team knew he was doing this, they'd try and wrestle him out of his lion in a matter of ticks, so it's a good thing this will stay their little secret. He feels Black power on in earnest now, all systems alight as she rises to her feet, and then comes the familiar drain of quintessence from his body that ensures she'll have the strength to move.

Only.

That isn't all.

There's another pull, stronger than the normal exchange between a lion and her Paladin, stronger than almost anything he's felt before. It feels like coming home. It feels like something broken into separate pieces yearning to be whole again. It feels like Allura drawing the whole of his soul from the Black Lion, but this time, he's not being ripped from unfeeling machinery but a corporeal body, one that's soft and fragile and so, so breakable.

And Shiro is once again torn in two, his spirit from his physical form. He thinks, oh, this is familiar. His final, fatal clash with Zarkon comes back to him with a sickening irony.

Right before he screams. He thinks he screams, that is, but it could be Black, because their link means his pain is hers and her fear is his and they hurt, hurt, **hurt**.

Until there comes an abrupt feeling of weightlessness that sends him hurtling through the air, landing with an agonized thump that feels, blessedly, like the normal run-of-the-mill physical pain instead of having his soul sawed in half with a serrated knife. It takes him a few long moments to orient himself before he realizes he'd been thrown out of his lion's cockpit. What's worse is that he can't feel her, every attempt to reach out is met with a swift door to the face.

All Shiro can do is listen to the Black Lion roar her fury.

She's closing their bond by force, but he can still make out the words in her pained wails loud enough to shake the walls of her hangar, loud enough that he's certain the entire galaxy can hear. `My cub-brother-friend-son-love, my Paladin, my heart! I've hurt him when I should have protected him! I've taken all that he is and made it mine! I've stolen him when all I wanted was to keep him safe and now I risk swallowing him whole!`

From beyond the castle walls, the other lions take notice of her mournful calls and join in, five voices becoming one continuous howl of grief. Shiro is only just managing to pull himself back onto his feet when the inevitable search for the source of all this chaos leads straight back to him.

Inhale. 

Exhale.

"... I can explain."

He can't, but making an effort at some kind of normalcy when everything else is falling apart around him comes as natural as breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](https://amairawrites.tumblr.com/post/175365207653/) from amairawrites on Tumblr!


End file.
